


Phases

by trascendenza



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/F, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-20
Updated: 2010-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-12 03:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophie, as ever, has a plan. <em>She is a planter of seeds, a nourisher of ideas; she simply takes what is already there and brings it out into the light and waits for it to grow.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Phases

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to fizzyblogic for the beta!

Sophie knows faces. She knows their small tics and subtleties, the way that a twitch at the edge of a lip can mean the difference between a deal going sour or ending with champagne bubbling out of flutes. She knows that when Hardison's eyes focus on the ceiling it's because he's trying to give himself a few seconds to think things through before he blurts something out (he'll never admit how carefully he picks his words, but she knows that he learned more from that Nana of his than curse words). She knows bodies, too, that when Eliot's left shoulder bunches it's because he wants to punch something, a reflex from the field where most of his targets expect it to come from the right.

She knows that when Nate rubs his thumb along the left side of his chin he's trying not to let on that he caught himself staring down her shirt, but that's child's play in comparison to reading the twenty-two different expressions he plasters on when he's thinking about his family -- one for every occasion.

Parker, however, is a completely different matter. She transmits everything she's thinking on her face: it's the epitome of an open book. The problem is that there's very little _written_ in the book, not because Parker doesn't feel the way others do, but because she doesn't know what to make of those feelings. Her blankness isn't even a defensive mechanism -- that would be revealing, in itself. But, no, it's wholly genuine, and there are times that Sophie has no idea what to make of the girl. It's disconcerting. And a bit refreshing, if she's honest.

Sophie learns, over time. Parker is a particularly challenging study, but because she has no disingenuousness to her it's similar to wading through the dictionary: keep at it long enough and you'll stumble across something interesting. Sophie learns to discern between the blankness of Parker wondering if she should be having some sort of emotional reaction and the blankness of Parker wishing she would have some sort of emotional reaction. She learns to discern when Parker stalks off out of shyness and when it's sheer boredom (it's usually the latter), and when Parker sits down because she genuinely wants to listen and when she sits down because she can't think of anything better to do (the former, Sophie's happy to notice, happens more and more often).

"Why are you always staring at me?" Parker asks her one day, point blank, her eyes squinted at Sophie like she's a little butterfly underneath Parker's microscope.

"I wouldn't say always," Sophie says, smiling a little.

"Okay." Parker nods, accepting that. Then she brings her head back up sharply, pinning Sophie with her eyes. "So why are you staring at me, like, eighty-percent of the time?"

"Curiosity," Sophie says, shrugging mildly. It wouldn't do to let on too much this early; they've hardly got to the point where she can touch Parker unsolicited without getting an odd look.

"Oh." Parker's lips scrunch up; she's unsure what to make of that.

"Why?" Sophie says, intentionally interrupting Parker's whirring synapses before they can reach any conclusions. She taps deep into her well of studied nonchalance, aware of the way her silhouette curves as she leans up against the wall just a few inches nearer Parker. "Do you like it?"

"Um." And there it is, all of Parker's features squinching up in baffled surprise, the beginning of a paradigm shift. "I don't know."

"Well," Sophie says, laying a hand on her shoulder -- lightly, lightly -- and deepening the smile that's been playing on her lips throughout the whole exchange, "let me know when you work it out."

The seed planted, she walks off, Parker's eyes fixed on her back like tiny needles. The sensation sends delightful shivers up her spine.

*

Sophie, unlike many of her colleagues, relishes the wait. She loves the delicious curl of anticipation, the tightness to the air like electricity gathering before a storm. She's always been best at the long jobs, the ones where she gets to sink into a persona and sell someone; it doesn't matter what she's selling them, the act of persuasion is satisfaction in itself. She adores the softening around the mouth when her marks impulsively shove away doubt and enter into her sphere of promises and lofty dreams, when she _has_ them, when they're butter melting in the palm of her hand.

Despite her flippancy with Nate, she knows that there are lines she treads when she uses this knowledge in her personal life. Sometimes she imagines herself akin to a psychologist, saddled with all the same responsibility that comes with being able to see the things that people hide from the world and themselves. What she sees certainly isn't always pretty, and she tries to remember to always err on the side of compassion rather than superiority -- she'd hope someone would do the same for her when shuffling through her secrets.

That's why, in her love life, she's never persuaded someone who didn't initially have their own spark kindling. She is a planter of seeds, a nourisher of ideas; she simply takes what is already there and brings it out into the light and waits for it to grow. If it does, well, wonderful; if it doesn't, then it wasn't meant to be. She's not foolish enough to think she can con real love or friendship -- those things are best freely given or not at all.

That said, it's with no small amount of pleasure that she notes the way Parker's begun to look back. This is the part where the game shifts, where the rules change; suddenly she's the observed instead of the observer. Everywhere she turns she sees Parker's eyes tracking her movements, her forehead furrowed in concentration as if she's studying an especially difficult subject. Which Sophie certainly won't deny; what little she gives away just likely leaves Parker wanting more. (Well, she never said she wasn't a _tease._ She's never understood why people make it sound like a dirty word; she considers it a badge of honour.)

Parker, being Parker, isn't very subtle about it.

"Damn," Hardison observes after this has been going on for about three days, "girl's been looking at you like you're the tasty little piggie and she's the big bad wolf."

Sophie smiles, thinking that sums it up rather nicely.

*

Sophie likes to think she's a woman prepared for all occasions. She's worked everything from elegant ballrooms to seedy pubs; she's been received by royalty, ridden sidesaddle on the back of a motorbike going at speeds she makes an effort not to think about after the fact; she's eaten anything and everything that can be chopped, fried, pureed or served raw without batting an eye.

It used to be a game, back in school: see who can scare Sophie. Her friends would sneak up behind her at every available opportunity, yelling "BOO" at the top of their lungs; they'd jump out from behind trees, underneath desks, inside wardrobes; they'd stuff all manner of slimy, crawly and multi-legged animals into her rucksack (always alive, because otherwise she gave them stern talking-tos about unnecessary cruelty towards innocent creatures); they'd pass her notes in class with crude and graphic drawings. All of it to shock, scare, surprise, but whatever her internal reaction, she'd just shoot a slightly pitying look at the culprit or culprits -- she always knew who it was -- and give them a little smile to let them know it was all right, they'd given it an honest try. She'd actually always wondered what it would be like if one of them had succeeded, had pulled a reaction out of her that she hadn't first chosen to give. They gave up trying long before she felt challenged.

Apparently, the one situation that Sophie Devereaux _isn't_ prepared for is Parker knocking on her bedroom window at two in the morning, and then squinting, blinking, swallowing when Sophie opens it before blurting out: "So do we make out now or what?" She is hanging upside down.

Sophie closes her jaw, which spent an embarrassing amount of time hanging open. She looks at Parker for a long moment, takes in the way her blond ponytail is swaying in the wind behind her head and the flush to her face that makes Sophie think she was out leaping around buildings for awhile before coming here. Scattered pieces in her mind suddenly fall into place and she realizes that even after all this time, Parker is still a wonderful mystery, someone that Sophie can't take apart bit by bit any time she chooses. There is an entire part of Sophie that just unwinds and stops trying when they are together, and it's exhilarating in a way that borders on overwhelming. And then Sophie can't help it, truly can't; she begins to laugh, all the way from the bottom of her belly, her shoulders shaking. It really shouldn't surprise her that after all these years it's Parker who wins the game Sophie never forgot she was playing.

"Marvellous plan," she says, her words high and giddy and completely girlish sounding, and it's only three steps before she's at the window, taking Parker's face in her hands and commencing on what has to be the most awkward and unpredictable and somewhat dangerous kiss of her life. Marvellous doesn't even begin to cover it.


End file.
